Winter's Harsh Bite
by DwarvenGirl
Summary: James 'Bucky' Barnes is a wreck. This story explores both the character struggle, an what kind of an effect the torture and assassinations would have upon his psyche. *SPOILERS FOR CAPTAIN AMERICA: WINTER SOLDIER* Original female character and some random plot oddness. Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

_There was blood in the snow, a vibrant smear of crimson that painted upon argent canvas as the precious drops of life exuded from the grotesquely sheared limb. He was so cold; his broken gasping a liquid shudder that wracked him painfully. _

_Footsteps sounded in the frozen air, and a high voice that twisted with a heavy accent. Somehow, he could not distinguish the words, the pain and the struggling breaths that were wrested from his lungs were harsh in his own ears. _

_His jacket was grabbed from behind, and hauled from the ground, he was dragged limply, staring upwards into the snow flecked sky, the feather soft flakes lightly dusting his blood splattered face. The train tracks far above him were still, and he blinked away tears as consciousness slipped from his grasp the faint wisp of life. _

_Steve was up there..._

James Buchanan Barnes slouched in his creaking chair, the metal of his bionic hand clicking against the glass it held, the dark amber liquid sloshing against its smooth sides.

He stared moodily out the dirty window to the street below, clenching his remaining hand into a fist, a futile attempt to stop its trembling. The shrill keen of a siren startled him, and with a shatter, his glass hit the grimy floor, followed by his chair.

Cursing, he rubbed his eyes tiredly. Kiev was not, perhaps, the best locale in which to lay low for a while, but it was what he remembered, one of the only things he could remember. He would be lying if he said they were good memories, but it had been, at most, his home for the past 70 or so years: it was the first place he thought to flee after the events in Washington.

He paced around the tiny room, a muddle of disjointed memories swirling within his skull, and he sank to his knees, utterly overwhelmed with faces and situations that he didn't understand. And always, the chiseled face of the sandy haired Avenger was before him, both a whip thin, schoolboy, and the brawny hero he had fought, and he still could not remember why he was so important. And always, the clear, fresh memories of the agile snuffing of human life, the fresh blood soaking his hands and clothes, which he could never fully clean. Bucky could not be sure about anything these days.


	2. Chapter 2

_There was blood in the snow, a vibrant smear of crimson that painted upon argent canvas as the precious drops of life exuded from the grotesquely sheared limb. He was so cold; his broken gasping a liquid shudder that wracked him painfully. _

_Footsteps sounded in the frozen air, and a high voice that twisted with a heavy accent. Somehow, he could not distinguish the words, the pain and the struggling breaths that were wrested from his lungs were harsh in his own ears. _

_His jacket was grabbed from behind, and hauled from the ground, he was dragged limply, staring upwards into the snow flecked sky, the feather soft flakes lightly dusting his blood splattered face. The train tracks far above him were still, and he blinked away tears as consciousness slipped from his grasp the faint wisp of life. _

_Steve was up there..._

James Buchanan Barnes slouched in his creaking chair, the metal of his bionic hand clicking against the glass it held, the dark amber liquid sloshing against its smooth sides.

He stared moodily out the dirty window to the street below, clenching his remaining hand into a fist, a futile attempt to stop its trembling. The shrill keen of a siren startled him, and with a shatter, his glass hit the grimy floor, followed by his chair.

Cursing, he rubbed his eyes tiredly. Kiev was not, perhaps, the best locale in which to lay low for a while, but it was what he remembered, one of the only things he could remember. He would be lying if he said they were good memories, but it had been, at most, his home for the past 70 or so years: it was the first place he thought to flee after the events in Washington.

He paced around the tiny room, a muddle of disjointed memories swirling within his skull, and he sank to his knees, utterly overwhelmed with faces and situations that he didn't understand. And always, the chiseled face of the sandy haired Avenger was before him, both a whip thin, schoolboy, and the brawny hero he had fought, and he still could not remember why he was so important. And always, the clear, fresh memories of the agile snuffing of human life, the fresh blood soaking his hands and clothes, which he could never fully clean. Bucky could not be sure about anything these days.

Least of all himself.

He had been trapped within himself for almost 70 years, a broken man with the body of a weapon, controlled by pain and the lack of any substantial memories of anything before. After each mission, he would be so unpredictable that they would put him back on ice until the next job, the convenience of having him asleep, never seeing past the boundaries of each, sanguine mission, a privilege to those who harnessed the Winter Soldier.

As if to prove him right, diminutive Arnim Zola suddenly stood before him, unafraid, his voice drawling and bored.

"You think you can cut all ties?" he asked, as if amazed at the stupidity in front of him. "You are a soldier of fortune, a god among men. And yet you sit here, while Hydra cause remains unfulfilled? And you call yourself a man, a warrior. You are nothing but a useless traitor, devoid of courage."

Zola kicked him viciously, punctuating the abuse with German curses.

Bucky scrambled to a corner, and put his head in his hands, stabbing pain cracking through his skull like lightning. Rocking, he cried out, the act scraping across his throat like a scouring pad.

The blond haired man was suddenly at his side, his eyes black, his voice guttural and distorted. "...until the end of the line."

"Stop it!" Bucky screamed, his hands over his ears.

And there was silence. Bucky looked up at a Zola who was not there, had never been there, and stared at the empty room, the alcohol soaked glass shards sparkling in the gash of sunlight that slashed across the floor.

Hot tears slipped down his rough cheeks. "I don't understand," he whispered, his voice breaking.

**Chapter 2**

Steve Rogers glanced at the map again, and then at the road before them. Kiev was beginning to wear at him, and after so long looking for his best friend, he was losing hope.

"Don't you say it," Sam Wilson's voice piped from the driver's seat. "Don't you say we're lost."

Steve looked sheepishly at his companion. "I'm sorry. I'm not seeing anything matching this map." He received a highly exasperated glare from Sam, who pulled over to the side of the narrow, dirty street. Jumping out, he approached an old woman, her once dark hair wrapped in a moth-eaten shawl.

"Вибачте, не могли б ви направити мене в посольство?" he asked in Ukrainian, pulling a sweet smile. She grinned back, revealing chipped teeth, and she responded animatedly, her claw like hands gesturing erratically.

Sam kissed her hand, returning to the car with a superior air. "She says the Embassy is several streets down, in the opposite direction to the one you took us on."

'When did you learn to speak Ukrainian?" Steve demanded.

"Natasha taught me," he answered. "Well, she taught me enough to get around. Who are you looking for at the Embassy, anyway?"

"A friend. He gave me a tip months ago, and I just thought that a follow up would be a good idea. You know, since we haven't found any leads on Bucky for so long."

Sam glanced at him. "We will, Cap, don't worry."

Steve nodded, a lump growing in his throat. Bucky was probably holed up somewhere, not knowing what to do, or who he was. He had been spotted in the Captain America exhibit at the museum, and Steve was not sure how that would affect him. The realization of everything could be too much for him to handle.

"-do you think?" Sam was saying.

"What?" Steve snapped out of his reverie.

"I was asking if you think they used the same serum that made you Cap on Barnes?"

"Erskine's research was supposedly the height of secrecy, but It is highly probable they used it, or something like it. But they did not just experiment on him. They brainwashed him, with highly intensive torture."

"Damn," Sam whistled.

Steve didn't respond. His mind had transported him back, back to Washington, back to that causeway.

"Who the hell is Bucky?" came that ghostly voice of memory, the look of confusion in those green eyes. Steve felt that empty hole in his gut, as if he had been shot. When he found his friend, would he be Bucky anymore? Even deep down? Sam seemed to think there was nothing but an assassin under mask, but Steve had seen his tortured eyes, even been saved by this...monster. Could he save his best friend? Panic sunk down into his chest. Maybe he would fail. Would he have to-

No. He wouldn't kill Bucky. He was going to save him. He would give anything to hear that snarky voice teasing him, or even just his presence reassuring him that he wasn't alone, that someone always had his back. He glanced over to Sam Wilson, realizing, he did have a friend. A friend who hadn't let him down. And that was enough...at least until he found Bucky, his best friend: his blood brother.

As they walked into the Embassy, Steve snapped out of his reverie.

"I need to see Mr Brant Corvin, please. It is an urgent matter," he told the receptionist.

She glanced up at him, her expression disinterested. "What's the name?" she asked, bored.

"Steve Rogers."

She sat up quickly, perching her glasses on her nose. "Right away Captain Rogers."

They were quickly ushered into a back office, and told that Mr Corvin would see them shortly. Sam glanced round the ordinary looking office.

"I kinda assumed an embassy would look a bit more-"

"Spectacular?" asked a voice from the doorway. "I am afraid not," smiled the kindly old man standing within its aperture. "Brant Corvin," he introduced himself to the surprised Falcon. "Captain Rogers, it is a pleasure, as always," he said delightedly.

"Call me Steve, and I am honored, Ambassador," Steve answered, shaking his hand.

"What can I do for you, Steve?"

"I came to ask another favor. Regarding the Winter Soldier," Steve replied, his voice lowered.

"Dammit, Steve, you know I don't...er...know anything about that. That is what we agreed," he finished in a hissing whisper.

Steve matched his tone. "Please, Mr Corvin. I have to find him. And you are the only person who can apparently find him."

"I can't. Find him, I mean. It wasn't me," the ambassador replied. "It-it was someone else."

'Someone else? What the hell does that mean?" Sam cut in ruthlessly, confused.

"I mean, I had help. She-" Brant stopped short.

"She?" Pounced Steve.

Brant stared at them for a long moment. "Come with me. I need you to meet someone."

**Chapter 3**

The dream began as tradition had dictated. Falling...rushing wind in his ears, rocks hurtling past, unimaginable pain as his forearm was cruelly sheared from him. The snow, the blood, then darkness, confusion, voices telling him things, asking him things, terrible electricity shooting through him if the answer was incorrect.

He sat in the chair, the mouthpiece clenched tightly between his teeth. The lights overhead flickered at each flux of electricity, and his body thrashed at each new onslaught, his throat raw from screaming. The pain stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and with a jolt of shock wholly unlike the one he had just experienced, he saw a woman standing before him, untouched by the chaos around her, the sparks as light bulbs blew in their sockets, scientist rushing about. All was silent, as if they, the broken man and this woman alone were spectators. Gone were his shackles and mouth guard, and he sat up, momentarily free from the pain.

"Who are you?" he asked after an awkward pause, his voice rasping painfully in his throat.

"Call me," she hesitated. "Call me Anise."

"Anise," he repeated, then shook his head. "Who the hell are you?"

"Just someone who can help you." At his snort of disbelief, she glanced about the darkened room. "Bucky, this isn't real."

"Excuse me?" he whispered, dumbfounded at her seeming stupidity. Did she not see the torture? Could she not hear the grotesque creak of his metal appendage?

"This is a dream, a dream of something you experienced before. And Bucky, you must get past this, if you are going to fulfill Fate's design."

Rising from the chair, Bucky grasped her arms, pushing her all the way back to the wall, pinning her, her arms caught in a painful grip.

"What the hell are you saying to me," he snarled, shaking her. "Fate?! I can't even remember who I was before they started fucking with my brain, and your preaching to me about Fate?"

Wrenching away from her, he prowled around the room like a caged tiger, rage and panic rising in his throat like bile.

Life for the past 60 or so years had been nothing but mind games, death, and obedience. He had had dreams, in the coldest reaches of his mind when he was put into stasis: airy adventures with someone whose face he could never make out, dreams of a much simpler life, of a man he hardly recognized as himself. He longed to be the man in those dreams, but ever he woke to find more pain, more blood, and ever did he forget these dreams, until they were but a distant, childhood's game, devoid of substance.

Anise waited, watched his struggle, a well of pain behind her eyes. It was as if she was watching him drown, doomed only to watch.

"Bucky-" she began.

"Stop calling me that!" he snapped angrily.

"It is your name, and the sooner you remember that, the sooner you can be saved from this wretched hell, James Barnes," she retorted.

He blinked at her. "Well that was a bit melodramatic," he answered, more calmly. "So tell me, if this isn't real, where the hell are we?"

"We are inside your mind. This is a dream."

"A dream?" he asked, disbelief giving his voice an edge. "How the hell are you even here, then?"

Anise laughed. "I am astral projecting myself into your dreams."

Bucky stared at her, shaking his head. "Whatever that means. Why are you even here?"

"I have been having visions of you, both as you were, and as you are. And the visions helped me fix...a problem of my own. I owe you. And I am going to help you wake up."

"I'll wake up eventually if this is a damn dream," he snapped.

"I didn't mean from sleep," she answered, and faded away, darkened mist that caressed his face.

Bucky woke suddenly, trapped within his tangled blankets. _What the fuck just happened_, he thought to himself, unsure what to make of his nonsensical dream. If he was being honest with himself, he would have said it was a welcome relief to the constant replays of his life as the Winter Soldier.

But there was no time to ponder further the bizarreness of what he had experienced; there was a click at the window in the tiny commode room to his right. He was out of bed in two heartbeats, the knife that reposed under his pillow clenched in his scarred fist. Back to the wall, Bucky waited for the intruder to enter the room. The booted feet paused on the cold tile, as if listening, before stealthily stepping onto the carpeted floor.

Bucky kicked out mercilessly, and the crack of the intruder's knee breaking sideways was punctuated with a scream of pain and surprise. As the man went down, he grabbed him by the hair, jerking his neck back, and with the smoothest of fluid movements, he cut the man's throat, blood spurting over the floor wetly, the last drops of his life draining onto the now soggy carpet. The man fell bonelessly in a heap, leaving Bucky to stare at his corpse dispassionately as he wiped the soiled knife blade on a towel. Static sounded in his ears, as if the radio was on, and had lost its signal. He shook his head.

"_Don't do anything stupid."_

"_How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you."_

Bucky reeled as Steve Rogers' voice rang out, and he stumbled, falling to his knees. It was as if the dam broke; thousands of memories flooded into his brain, and hands over his ears, he rocked under the weight of it, caught in an endless maelstrom of pain.

He could see it all, the little scrawny blond kid he saved from bullies all those years ago who shook his hand solemnly, introducing himself as Steve Rogers from Brooklyn. Protecting him through school, trying to set him up with girls with no luck. Joking that his small friend could do better than those tramps, anyway.

And then suddenly the roles had reversed. Bucky, lying on an examination table had the vision of his friend, now handsome and strong, saving him. And their bond only strengthened, deepened. There was nothing Bucky Barnes would not do for him, including give his life.

But when he came to in that dank, dirty examination room, he realized he had not. He was wholly alone, hurt and confused. They came to him, then, the scientists, and Armin Zola, and there was nothing they neglected to do to him. Through the torture, the surgeries and additions to his amputeed limb, the intensive psychotherapy, all the while he was sure Steve would come for him. This belief prevailed through every thing they threw at him, and his captors spoke in whispers of admiration for his inner strength that just seemed to withstand. Until the day Zola came into his cell triumphantly, his squeaky voice jaunty and carefree for the first time in months.

"Ahah, my excellent Corporal Barnes, I have lovely news for you," he crowed, waving a paper in Bucky's pale, drawn face.

"What," Bucky managed shakily through a badly split lip. "Finally found those testicles of yours?"

"No, I just found your obituary," Zola whispered in his ear.

Six words and a piece of paper was all it took for him to break. Steve would not be coming for him. Steve Rogers, Captain America, his best friend, the only thing that kept him anchored, thought he was dead, and with a laugh, Bucky retreated into his own mind, hopelessness drowning him, filling his lungs, covering his skin like cancer.

But as Bucky cowered to the floor, a prisoner of his own thoughts, he shrank from the memory of his hand unwaveringly pulling his sidearm, taking aim, and putting three bullets into his best friend's back.

"_I'm with you...to the end of the line."_


	3. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Brant Corvin led them down a rabbit warren of hallways and doors, and finally, at the bottom of a flight of stairs, he knocked on a closed door.

"Cas?" he asked, knocking again. "Cassandra, I have a couple visitors here to see you."

There was silence from the room, and with a curse, Brant turned the knob, which gave easily under his hand. He turned on the lights, and Sam Wilson whistled faintly as they glanced around the room.

It was a tidy room, a small cot set up in the corner, blue blankets straight and unwrinkled. Several bookshelves, heavily ladened with volumes of all sizes, hugged one wall, and there was a beautiful picture of an older woman on the bedside table, but it wasn't any of this that got Steve and Sam's attention. It was the drawings.

The walls were covered in charcoal drawings, on huge watercolor papers, small printer papers, card stock, newsprint. Hundreds of detailed portraits of one single person.

Steve grabbed Brant by the coat, and dragging him from the room, he slammed him against the wall.

"What the hell is this, Brant?" he demanded, almost choking the other man. Sam put a hand on his shoulder, but Steve shook his off impatiently.

Brant coughed, feebly struggling. "Her name is Cassandra Lee Fletcher. She is a mutant," he gasped.

Steve let him go suddenly. "Well, she is obviously obsessed with James Barnes," he snapped. "Why? Who the hell is she?"

"Steve," Sam said warningly.

"Don't," Steve ordered, putting up a hand.

Brant straightened his sport coat and ran shaking fingers through his hair. "Cas and her parents were involved in a car accident when she was only thirteen. Her parents were both killed instantly, and Cas...well...Cassandra was in a coma for ten years. Head trauma. No one thought she was gong to wake up, until one day, she sat straight up in bed, screaming about somebody named Bucky. Everyone was convinced she was a lunatic, hell, even I thought she was. Until Washington."

"Wait, she knew he was The Winter Soldier?"

"I suspect so. She never said it outright," Brant explained. "She babbled constantly that Winter was Coming. We all assumed she was a fan of Game of Thrones," he laughed wryly.

"How did she come to be under your custody?" Steve asked, unamused.

"Custody?" repeated Corvis in surprise. "She is my ward, not my prisoner."

"She's twenty-five!"

"She was deemed to be insane," Brant shook his head. "And being her godfather, she was put in my care. She is here, now, because when she isn't obsessing about Bucky, she loves learning, and she is amazing with people-"

"Cut the crap, Brant. This was where you got the last tip that you 'dug up for me', isn't it?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"How long has she been talking about Bucky?" he bellowed in Corvin's face.

Brant sighed, raking claw-like fingers through his hair. "Two years."

Steve punched a hole in the wall, swinging away from Brant to catch his breath. Sam stared at this un-Captain-like behavior with wide eyes, wisely not remarking on it.

'Where is Cassandra now?" he asked after a long moment.

"I don't know," Corvin answered, staring into the room. "she was here right before you came."

"Did she say anything to you?" Steve asked, rubbing his eyes.

"No. Not about Bucky," Corvin answered distractedly. "I need to find her as soon as possible. She...she isn't stable right now, and certainly not on her own. With her...gifts, sometimes she has difficulty differentiating between the present, and the future."

"We'll find her," Sam answered quickly.

"Where would she go?" Steve asked, hands on hips.

Brant looked straight into his eyes for the first time in their conversation. "Honestly, Cap, I have no idea."


	4. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Cassandra Darnell was not entirely sure what she would find in the seedy hotel room that faced the parking lot and main road, but as she gazed down at the decomposing body sprawled beneath the lintel of the bathroom, the coagulated blood fleshy against the carpet, she was pretty sure this wasn't it. Setting her woefully small rucksack on the floor, she closed the door of the room, flicking the lock into place.

Trying not to breathe in the cloying scent of putrid blood and fetor, she stepped over the body, glancing about the bathroom. It was very small, the corners at which you did not want to glance too closely, but there was no sign that anyone had been staying here, except for the dead man at her feet. She stared at the mirror, ambivalent and trapped. She expected to find him here, just as she had envisioned him, seated in his chair, watching the people walking along the road, alcohol in his hand. Yet here she was, standing in a dank little motel room with a dead man. Not that it was a surprise it would become more complicated. It wasn't as if life had been easy thus far, after all.

She frowned at the mirror, catching sight of a hand print on the sheer, cold surface of the mirror. Hesitating, she tentatively placed her hand flush against it.

There was a crack of what sounded like thunder, and her surroundings faded around her, and it was as if she had walked through a portal.

_She was running, her breath rasping against her throat, her chest rising as falling with each rise and fall of her feet. Boots crackled through decaying leaves, and she could feel her blood pumping, thunderous and gorged within her extremities. But as she leapt over dead fall and ducked beneath branches, she realized suddenly, it wasn't she at all. It was Him. It was always Him. _

_She could feel him, as if she was trapped within his body. She could feel his desperation, hopelessness, and panic. She could feel his wretchedness as if it leaked out of every pore. _

Cas jerked her hand away from the mirror, wiping it convulsively on her shirt, turning and stumbling over the body and out of the bathroom. Bucky remembered. Cassandra jerked her rucksack off the floor, and she was out the door in two heartbeats. She had to find him, because the way he was feeling, they were going to lose him. She was going to lose him.

It was stupid, she thought as she boarded a bus. She did not even know what she was doing. From everything she felt and saw through him, she thought she knew where he was. But as she sat down in her swaying, stained chair, her inner voice mocked her. Who did things like this? It was unbelievable! Following an assassin like a lost puppy after a potential owner, it was madness. And yet...

She remembered everything. She remembered the accident. The heavy darkness that veiled her from the outside world, it had been like floating in a warm cocoon. She could hear things around her, muffled, as if from a great distance, but she saw nothing, could neither move nor feel. Until the visions began.

Initially, it was small things. She could feel pain in her legs, or arms, and little did she know, but unusual bruising would blossom across her pale skin, causing the nurses and doctors much confusing as to cause. And then the dreams began.

She would dream about waking up, gasping and retching against the smoke that billowed around her. Voices around her would order her to stay still has her heart raced and she clung to the sides of her metal coffin in panic as they examined her, letting her sit up.

She would see faces, faces of those she killed, assassinated. She would feel the agony shoot up her amputated arm as they fitted her with a bionic invention as they had so many times before. After a long time, years, she began to realize that this person was not her, and she struggled against the dreams, with no avail. She became trapped, trapped within a broken man's body, forced to live what he had lived, with the pain, and the desperation, a weapon, controlled and muzzled.

Until the day he broke. Really broke. She remembered it still, and her skin crawled with the memory. It had been a routine attack, fully planned by his handlers and his muscles ached for a chance to do the job. He had been unstable throughout the day, knocking out a scientist accidentally in response to getting touched. Too long out of Cryo, he overheard several times.

He was dropped on the deck of a ship, his target a fifty-four year old diplomat who was sleeping in his bunk, aft.

_Bucky crept forward down the shiny, lacquered corridor, his heavy, booted feet making hardly a noise over the sound of the waves and the soft spray of the sea. __The knife he held glinted in his hand as he let himself into the diplomat's room, and he paused, listening to the man's even breathing. _

_The diplomat was in bed with his wife, her hand gently resting on his bare chest as they slept, It was short work as Bucky exchanged the knife for a long needled syringe which he plunged into the targets throat. It was over silently as the target struggled for air, dying with his wife sleeping unawares. _

_Bucky slipped from the room, a dark ghost, but was halted just outside the door. In his way stood a child, his chubby hands clutching a Captain America comic strip, his pajamas modeled after the comic's ostentatious hero. He stared upwards at the shadow darkened Winter Soldier, dropping his book. _

_But Bucky gaped at him. It was as if he stared at the scrawny build of someone he used to know. _

_'I had him on the ropes,' a voice informed him, and Bucky started, looking around. _

_'Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone," he whispered to the terrified child in front of him. _

_An almost embodied voice answered him, 'How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you?" _

_Bucky clutched his head, dropping the knife with a loud clank. "Stop it," he begged the child, who had begun to cry. "Steve, where are we? Steve?' _

It was like his whole world had crashed in on him. Cas, after what seemed like a nightmare of black waves and raised voices, sat straight upwards in a white bed in the hospital screaming his name. That had been two years ago.

And now, as she sat, swaying and staring blankly out of the dirty bus window, she hoped against all hope her projections would have worked, and she did not face death at Bucky's hands. Not now. Not after all this time.


	5. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Bucky had finally stopped running. Or his body had refused to continue running, rather. He sat in an alleyway, behind a pungent old dumpster, his knee drawn up to support his arm, the metal cooling his skin even through the heavy fabric of his trousers.

He had no idea why he was here, in the center of the Projects, but it was where his feet had taken him, and he sat, his head bowed, his hair dripping in the gentle rain that had just began, flowing down the center of the alley before him, reflecting the slate gray sky.

It felt like he was drowning; the voices in his head screaming, fractured memories, jagged and confusing, mocking him. There was no clarity, no real memories, just a flaming pyre of faces, names, events that he observed from an outsider's perspective, as if he couldn't remember he belonged in them. And always, Steve was there, looking at him with those hurt blue eyes, shock frozen on his perfect features.

"A lot of people are gonna die, Buck. I can't let that happen," he would chime disjointedly, his face distorting.

Bucky let out a strangled groan, clutching his head in his hands, his body rocking unconsciously. "Stop it," he begged himself, a strangled supplication that rubbed against his raw throat.

He almost did not hear the footsteps that echoed in the ozone-filled air, disturbing his tiny piece of the world.

"I thought I would find you here," a voice told him over the rain. He looked up through his dripping hair at the girl standing before him, his fist clenching almost involuntarily. It was the woman he had dreamed about, quite a bit more soaked, her bulky clothes hanging off her medium frame like robes in the rain. Her short hair was plastered to her rain slicked brow, tiny beads of water suspended from the curled ends like diamonds.

He stood, hulking over her, dark and menacing. He had her by the throat in seconds, feeling her fluttering pulse beneath his cold fingers like a tiny trapped bird.

"Haven't you tortured me enough?" he asked softly, and it was as if he had the thread of her life standing suspended there, in the rain. It would be so easy to snap that thread, make the vision flee from his presence, a shadow exposed to the harsh starkness of light.

"Bucky, it's me," she gasped against his grip, and he could feel the scraping of the words against her throat. "Bucky, don't do this, I'm here with you. This isn't an illusion."

He slowly drug her against him. "I think you're lying," he breathed in her ear, breathy over the sound of the rain sheeting over them like "Because you know what Cas," he laughed, husky and painful. "I can't tell if you're real or not. In fact, I'm probably back in my hotel room, and all this is in my mind."

He flung her away from him, clutching his head. "Why aren't I waking up?" he screamed. "I just want to wake up."

He fell to his knees, there in the wet, trying to remember when it was the last time he had really, truly felt something. And he just couldn't remember.

He felt a hand upon his shoulder.

"Bucky?' Cas whispered. "It is going to be okay. I'm here. I'm really here."

He did not know how long they sat like that, his knees planted upon the cold, soaked concrete, her hand on his shoulder. It felt like she was his last lifeline, as if her thread of life was the only thing keeping him from drowning in the desperation that filled his lungs, choking him. She knelt beside him, wrapping her arm around his shoulders, muscle bunching and shaking under her hand.

"It's okay," she whispered again. "You don't have to be alone anymore."

"Who the hell are you?" he asked, his voice raw. "Why are you here?"

"I came looking for you," she answered quietly. "And I told you, I'm Cas."

"How do you know me? Did I kill someone you knew?" he asked with a glimmer of old Bucky humor.

Cas laughed unsteadily, her teeth chattering. "Come with me," she said in answer. "I have a motel room where we can get that arm of yours dry. We can talk there."

Bucky looked her in the eyes for the first time. He knew it was probably a trap: she would likely try to kill him, but in that moment, he wanted to go with her. It was stupid, and weak, and an image of him breaking her neck, her warmth marginally warming his bionic arm as he let her back to slump upon the ground had a certain amount of seduction to it.

This was soon followed with a hollow sense of disgust. What the fuck was he thinking? He almost remembered what it was like to be...human. To be Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, with his sense of humor, his courage, his loyalty. Taking a girl to her motel room for some fun had been a usual occurrence way back when he was young, and full of life. Before the war. Before HYDRA.

Cas helped him off his knees, and he let her lead him out of the alley. Zola's voice echoed coldly in his mind, screaming for him to come to his senses.

"What are you doing?" he shrieked in Bucky's ear. "Kill her! Kill her now!"

Yet somehow, he allowed her to lead him, a ghost beside her, his boots making no sound upon the wet concrete, the rain coming down as a gentle pitter-patter. He would try to jerk his hand out of hers, as if his muscles had a convulsive mind of their own, and she would turn to him and whisper in his ear, her hands holding him comfortingly.

She finally ushered him into her room, locking the door behind them. He looked around, his trained eyes flicking over her small bag of belongings, it contents spilling like cotton viscera from canvas skin, and the darkened interior of the room.

He heard her walk into the bathroom, the metal towel rod clanking as she stripped it of its charge. Walking back out, she pulled the chair out from the rickety old desk, motioning him to sit. Bucky hesitated, watching her closely.

"We need to dry that off," she said quietly, motioning to his arm. He glanced down at himself, soaking wet, the droplets pinging off his bionic limb like tiny shards of glass shattering. Nodding silently, he just stared at her as she knelt next to him and began carefully drying each section and rivet.

"Who are you?" he growled huskily. "How the hell do you even know about me?"

Cas sighed as she worked, not meeting his eyes. "My parents and I were driving home one night. I had ballet practice, and it was late. My mom, she-she hated driving at night. Said all the lights were disorientating," Cas said with a sad laugh. She cleared her throat awkwardly before continuing. "We were hit head on by a drunk driver who couldn't tell if we were in his lane or not. My parents were killed instantly. I survived, in a coma. I don't remember...a lot. Until I started having these dreams. About you. For ten years I lived everything with you. All your missions, the torture, I was there. Even when they put you back into Cryo, I slept with you. Until two years ago, when they revived you again, I woke up and I still had this connection with your mind.

Bucky scrubbed his hand across his sweat slicked brow. Cas stared at his trembling hand, and stopped touching him, pulling away slightly.

"I don't understand this connection," she told him. "But after the events in Washington, I had to do something."

"After the events in Washington," he repeated quietly, rising jumpily from his chair and pacing around her. "I remember," he said suddenly.

"Washington?"

"Everything. I remember everything."

Cassandra stood from her crouch. "When?"

He laughed wildly. "I killed a man, in that piece of shit room I'd been in, and it just...all came flooding back to me. I remember the War, what they did to me, I remember Steve," he laughed again, and Cas felt tendrils of worry curl around her gut like barbed wire. "I can see their faces," he whispered. "Every single one."

"Of the people you killed?" Cas asked hollowly.

"It's...it's what I am now." his voice was hoarse as he backed away from her. "I'm a killer. Steve can't see me for what I am."

"Bucky, don't go," Cas begged, her hands reaching for him as he backed into the door. "Please, you can be saved."

"No," he responded, his voice suddenly very steady, and with the bang of the door slamming open, he was gone, a ghost into the night.

Cas sank to her knees, burying her face in her hands. She really fucked it up this time. She needed help. She needed Steve Rogers.


	6. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The music was low, a country song that barely registered over the hum of voices that lay over the room, a smoky haze. Steve set his tumbler down heavily, the thick glass cracking against the rough wood of the bar like it had several times before. The bartender eyed him knowingly, and reaching over, the amber liquid splashed into its glass confines.

"Troubles of the heart?" he asked, cocking a bushy gray eyebrow.

"You could say that," Steve answered steadily, draining his glass in a motion that seemed all too familiar. He could almost feel Bucky's hand on his shoulder, a sarcastic comeback staining the air between them with comfortable comradeship. Ah, but no. He was alone, the bartender looking him over with what now seemed like awe.

"By golly, boy, where are you putting this stuff?"

Steve cracked a painful smile and shrugged, pushing the glass toward the other man with a nod.

"What's her name?" the man asked as he refilled the glass.

"His name...is Bucky," Steve answered softly.

"Did he cheat on you?" The bartender asked sympathetically.

"Wha-no, no," Steve stammered, realizing. "It isn't-we're not...he's my best friend. We aren't..._together_."

The bartender, his name tag declaring his name to be Jack, shrugged. "Affairs of the heart can all be complicated. What happened?"

Steve hesitated. Telling a complete stranger your best friend was turned into the most deadly assassin in the world by a subversive organization that almost killed millions of people wasn't exactly the best way to make friends...

"We just...we grew apart," he said carefully, aware of the hawk-like look in Jack's eyes. "And now he's...different. He isn't the man I knew anymore. And I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help him through this time in his life. I feel so powerless."

'Do you love him?" Jack asked abruptly.

"Yes. He's my brother. I would die for him," Steve answered simply.

Jack leaned on the counter. "Then it shouldn't matter what he's going through. Just be there for him. It'll be gritty, and painful, and he probably won't want the help you will give him. But it doesn't matter. Show him how much you love him. He'll come around. Don't you fret," Jack told him, leaving him to tend to another customer.

Steve laughed wryly as a phantom voice whispered in his ear.

"_You're my mission_."

He threw back the drink and clenched his jaw, rising from the chair resolutely. Bucky was his best friend, still, even after every that had happened. And Steve knew in his heart, Bucky was worth saving.

Pulling his cell phone, a device Mr Stark has insisted he needed, from his breast pocket, he painstakingly dialed Sam.

"Sam, find anything?" he asked at the hello at the other end of the line.

"Yea, a homeless guy saw somethin' real weird last night in some alleyway in the Projects. A guy with a metal arm apparently assaulted some girl, and then they went off together. He said he didn't see where they went, but it seemed like this guy was pretty out of it," Sam gave a rueful laugh. "He also said anyone would be with a goddamned metal arm."

Steve threw enough cash on the rough bar to cover his drinks and then some, and with a nod to the bartender, pushed out into the cool night.

"I'll be right there, Sam."


End file.
